Imaging Utilization Differences After Telemedicine Versus In-Person Visits

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a rapid expansion of telemedicine, but little is known about its impact on diagnostic imaging utilization. This study evaluates differences in imaging utilization after telemedicine versus in-person visits at the national level.

This was a retrospective case-control study using data from Optum's de-identified Clinformatics® Data Mart Database. Telemedicine and in-person visits during the year 2021 were identified and matched on various visit and patient characteristics. Weighted multivariate linear models with coarsened exact matching weights were estimated to quantify the differences in post-visit imaging utilization rates and number of imaging studies among visits with any post-visit imaging between the two visit types within 7 days, 14 days, and 30 days.

Of 23,431,032 visits, 10% were telemedicine visits. The 7-day post-visit imaging utilization rate was 2.4 percentage points (β = -2.37 [95% confidence interval: -2.41 to -2.32]) lower among telemedicine visits, representing a 29.7% lower imaging utilization rate after a telemedicine visit compared with an in-person visit. Results were similar for the 14- and 30-day periods. Among the subset of visits with post-visit imaging, the number of imaging studies within 7 days after the visit was 0.02 (β = 0.021 [95% confidence interval: 0.015-0.027]) higher (1.5% relative difference) for telemedicine versus in-person visits. This small difference persisted across all periods.

Telemedicine visits were associated with lower imaging utilization compared with matched in-person office visits, indicating this setting may not contribute to imaging growth. Future studies should explore the appropriateness of imaging ordered during telemedicine visits.